Elliot Minogue-Stone, Tyrrell Foreshaw and José Diogo Fernandes de Jesus in Orley Quick’s As We Like It (photo: Emmeline Cresswell)

Unfortunately due to the length of this evening’s program I had to leave to catch a train before seeing the final work. Apologies to Sketch Dance Company.

There’s a riotous imagination at play in Orley Quick & The Hairy Heroine’s As We Like It; while Quick throws a variety of feminine attributes at them (metaphorically and literally) the three (hairy) men — Tyrrell Foreshaw, José Diogo Fernandes de Jesus and Elliot Minogue-Stone — maintain their masculinity in a colourful exploration of gender such as Shakespeare himself might have liked.

The tone of the opening sequence is sublime: accompanied by the beautiful protest song, Los Hermanos (“the brothers”) by Atahualpa Yupanqui sung by Bia Krieger and Lhasa De Sela, the three men with eyes closed feel their way across the stage with arms outstretched as if on a religious pilgrimage until a sensual rhythm takes over their bodies. Their hands start to accent musical rhythms on their thighs but this transforms subtly into a hilarious competition of beats that goes downhill fast into an outright slapping fight. Quick thus takes us seamlessly from the height of sensibility to the depths of human foibles and what is refreshing is that the performers appear as surprised as we are by the deteriorating turn of events. It is their understated, deadpan performances that raise As We Like It to a high level of artistic achievement but it is Quick’s anarchic, earthy sense of humour that communicates to us throughout, destabilizing appearances to the point of absurdity. How else could you thread Minogue-Stone’s monologue about trousers, screw-drivers and big dogs, to the debonair de Jesus bellowing with rage, to the burly Foreshaw seducing the audience with his improbably supple pole dancing, to a skateboard ballet sequence, to a lip-synched trio fumbling for the correct name of a spirit level?

It is one of the longer works for Resolution — touching the maximum of 25 minutes — but the energy, sensuality and humour never pall. Quick is helped by dramaturg Karla Ptáček, costume designer Giulia Scrimieri (who clearly had fun finding the wigs, costumes and accessories kept in a wicker basket on stage until needed), costume maker Hania Kosewicz, lighting designer Joshua Gadsby and sound editor Alex Mitchell. But what makes As We Like It stand out is that Quick and the Hairy Heroines draw us unerringly through their irreverently fertile minds and light hearts to reveal a richness of observation played out with flamboyance, confidence and a fine sense of timing.

I had already interviewed Debbie Lee-Anthony and her daughter Lauren a couple of weeks before so I was aware of the emotional complexity behind Do Not Go Gentle and the high stakes mother and daughter (Materfilia) had placed in the work. It was the first time they were performing together and the inspiration was the life of Lee-Anthony’s late sister-in-law, Kath Posner. It was also the first time Posner’s husband, musician Hamilton Lee (aka Hamid Mantu), had composed a dance score and the first time he was seeing the work dedicated to his late wife. It is a tribute to the artistry of all three that their individual creativity contributes to the full realization of the whole without becoming emotionally fraught: the score arises as much from the poem of Dylan Thomas as it does from the choreographic input of the dancers, and the choreography flows inseparably from the score.

Time is very much the crucible of the poem, and time is what Do Not Go Gentle addresses; we see it in the relative ages of mother and daughter, in time as memories and time as absence, yet the work drills down into the present with stoical force. Lee-Anthony speeds up her movements and her daughter slows down hers in deference to each other’s time when they dance together but each explores their own vocabulary and pace in distinct and poignant soliloquies. Do Not Go Gentle is a meeting of lyrical expressionism and youthful optimism, a conversation in which both mother and daughter fully contribute their feelings and abilities with mutual respect and emotional warmth. Heard but not seen is the essential contribution of Hamilton Lee, the man and the musician, that links mother and daughter in a timeless paean to the enduring bonds of life itself.